From Descriptive Civil War Letters to Chronicling
American Indian Oral History
“When the white man landed on the shores of the New World, an eclipse blacker
than any that ever darkened the sun, blighted the hopes and happiness of the
native people, races then living in tranquility on their own soil.” Eli S. Ricker
The term
“Renaissance Man” is a compliment paid to an individual whose intellectual
curiosity encompasses a wide variety of interests. Eli Seavey Ricker certainly merits the
description. Farmer, lawyer, judge,
editor and later Indian researcher, he compiled more than 1500 tablet pages of
information by interviews with settlers, scouts and Indians. Thanks to Eli Ricker, recorded for posterity
are eyewitness accounts of the Indian Wars in the west, including such still
controversial engagements as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Wounded
Knee Massacre.
Eli Ricker was born
in 1843, in Maine, but in 1855 he enters our region as his family made the trek
to Oneida, Illinois in the hope of obtaining some of the rich farmland and of
making a better life for themselves.
Young Eli worked at farming and attended school in the winter months,
showing at an early age an interest in political questions and literary
endeavors, which led him to part time work as a journalist for some years with
both the Knox County Observer and The Galesburg Free Press.
At the outbreak
of the Civil War, patriotism and a longing for adventure beckoned. As soon as he could be spared from home, he
enlisted in August of 1862 in Company I. of the 102nd Illinois
Infantry, and arrived in Louisville, Kentucky in October. In 1863 he began writing descriptive letters
home to local newspaper editors to fill the readership in on the encounters of
the 102nd.
In letters to the
Knoxville Observer he paints a vivid
picture of a soldier’s discomfort
”A few days since, while on duty in the
fort, a storm set in with considerable severity, producing, in one way or
another, countless disagreeables. At
about 4 o’clock in the afternoon the rain commenced falling in torrents, and
continued with unabated violence until 3 o’clock the following morning. During the early part of the night the rain
was accompanied with thunder and lightning; the wind blew a furious gale,
driving the rain through every sort of protection; the fort within was
inundated, the tents flooded; water put out our fires at an early hour of the
night- the boys stood in motley groups, huddled together, crowded into the few
tents that were at hand, many of them drenched to the skin, while some were
stowed away in the boxes of ammunition, taking a quiet nap- a feeling of
nonchalance prevailed, jokes went the rounds, and the songs that fell upon our
ears were as sweet as ever, and contrasted strangely with the blast of the
storm. The sentinels paced the beats
with measured tread, while the flashing lightning, the bursting thunder, the
drenching rain and the howling tempest added, no doubt, to their reflections
genuine seriousness, while deeply ruminating upon the attractiveness of a soldier’s
life.”
An April movement of troops from
Gallatin, Tennessee to Franklin, KY gave him first hand experience of the
enmity the war had engendered between neighbors who had now become bitter
enemies.
“…companies D and I got off, and were sent
out on picket. Here we got an inkling of
what was “up.” It was early surmised
that the track was torn up, and the rebels were lying in ambush to capture the
train. We soon learned that the enemy
was prowling about in that vicinity.
Only last Thursday night a Union man, living near Franklin, was most
inhumanely murdered by guerillas. About
a dozen of them went to his house while he was at supper; as the door was
opened he was shot, the ball taking effect in his arm. He was taken from his house, and
notwithstanding his earnest request that he might be allowed to wear a coat and
hat, he was denied the privilege, as they remarked to him that they had no use
for them. He was taken about twelve
miles from his home, and then basely and cruelly murdered. His throat was cut from ear to ear, and his
body thrown into a creek. When found it
was discovered that he had been shot five times.”
In June young Eli was able to walk the
Stone’s River Battlefield, the scene of bloody fighting near the beginning of
the year. His description of the
battlefield follows…
“Yesterday Corporal Bulkeley and myself
visited the battlefield of Stone River, or rather, that part of it where the
last day’s fighting was done, which is seven miles this side of
Murfreesboro. Rude boards at the heads
of graves mark the resting places of the departed.
“After a pleasant walk we reached our
lines of entrenchments, which were thrown up by our forces during the battle,
and about a mile further in we found the rebel line. Between these lines of entrenchments was the
arena of a sanguinary struggle. Trees
are shivered and torn with shot and shell, and their trunks are literally filled
with musket balls. The evidences are
plain that the shower of lead was heavy as a hailstorm.”
In July a quarrel
erupted in the regiment as to the ability of the elderly Colonel McMurtry to retain command. Eli Ricker weighed in on the conflict,
sending a letter espousing his opinion to The
Knox County Observer. An excerpt
from his letter follows…
“Col. William McMurtry was one of the
earliest settlers of Knox County. He has
been long and well known by the people there.
It is not proposed to scan his faults or pronounce his worth. That would be irrelevant. But to say he is faulty is but to assert a
living truth that is applicable to all living men. Are there any free from defect? There are none perfect but the all-wise God.
Colonel
McMurtry is a man upwards of sixty years of age. At the call of his country he hastened to its
rescue. He raised a regiment and plunged
forward into the field with that inimitable ardor for which he is
remarkable. He may have been indiscreet
and over-zealous, and I doubt not his soul burned with a desire to lead his
enthusiastic followers against the cohorts of treason at an early day. But this fact, if it be a fact, speaks all
the better of his noble heart. Age had
not dampened his enthusiasm, it had not lessened the love he cherished for his
country, the flame of patriotic ardor still filled his bosom, but his powerful
zeal mastered his judgment….
Whether or not Col. McMurtry was qualified
to command a regiment is not a question for consideration. It needs not to be discussed in this
connection. He possessed great influence
and that was given to his country.
Fellowmen of Knox County, give a fellow citizen the credit which he
deserves. Without censure. Do not let it
be said after he has shuffled off the mortal coil that he went down to the
grave a victim of base ingratitude. What
a requital were that for his services!
Go ask the 102nd regiment and they will tell you that he
possessed the spirit and determination of the most impetuous and gallant youth,
but that old age had impaired his judgment.
He is held in high veneration by many of those whom he commanded, and
their attachment to him is testimony in his behalf. His is a noble heart, a generous soul. He maintained no frozen distance between
himself and his men. He was not deaf to
their appeals, blind to their wants, nor untouched by their sufferings. He is cherished in grateful remembrance by
many of his old command when they hear the unmanly and villainous slurs of
heartless slanderers against him.”
Corporal Ricker by this time, his trek
with the Union army took him to Nashville, then Chattanooga, then across
Georgia. Sherman’s men were becoming
more confident by the middle of 1864, when they moved closer to Atlanta, a
confidence that was reflected in a letter that Eli addressed to his sister and
mother.
“You can tell those at home what have said so
much against it that there is not a regiment in the army that has a better
reputation than ours. Colonel Smith is
emphatically a fighting man. Our Spencer
Repeating Rifles with which five companies are equipped have given us sort of a
notoriety in our corps. The rebels know
us by our arms, and we are quite well known among them as among our own men.”
By Christmas of 1864 Sherman had
presented President Lincoln with the “Christmas Present” of Savannah, GA, thus
effectively concluding his “March to the Sea” and depriving the Confederacy of
that important port city. From there it
was time to move into South Carolina to make the birthplace of the serpent
called “Rebellion” suffer for having spawned it. An example of the vengeance wreaked upon the
South follows in this excerpt from a letter written in mid-January, 1865.
“We move, we go into camp, and then a
miniature city grows up in a day. We
have good houses again. The deserted
buildings which composed the town of Hardeesville furnished the material. It is a diverting spectacle to see the houses
of a town coming down about the streets as the soldiers strip their farms and
gather up and carry away the lumber. In
a few hours a town of a half century’s growth is thus leveled to the
ground. Yet at the same time it is not
pleasant to witness the wanton destruction of property, if one has his thoughts
about him.”
Eli Ricker accompanied the 102nd
Illinois through their punishment of the Palmetto State and participated In the
Battle of Bentonville, In North Carolina.
In a couple of letters, one written in early January and in a short
letter he penned shortly after Bentonville, he vents his disgust with the
swampy country and justifies their treatment of the South Carolinian
population.
“I trust hot weather will not overtake us
in this locality. It is a very unhealthy
section of country, begetting malaria in summer on account of the swamp, of which
there is an endless number. I might
better say that the whole country herebout is one vast swamp in which a spot of
earth occasionally rises above the water, affording habitable places like oases
in a desert. Notwithstanding, we have
again erected comfortable cabins and are living in full enjoyment of their
advantages and comforts. I. for one,
shall not be loath to depart from this land of alligators and pestiferous
swamps.”
“On the 21st {March) the right
wing routed the enemy {at the Battle of Bentonville} which gave us possession
of this place. Our force arrived here
{in Goldsboro} the 24th. We
are now in encampment two miles within the town.
I do not design writing a long
letter. I have time for only a few
words. Since leaving Savannah we have
marched five hundred miles. We left a
black track in South Carolina. I cannot
regret it. They that taketh the sword
shall perish by the sword.”
In an early April
letter, he again turns his attention to South Carolina and his contempt for the
state and its rebel is most evident.
“South Carolina has paid in part the penalty
of her treason. She is now prostrate and
her people are suffering. I commiserate
the destitution of the poor but I can shed no tears for the rich. Great distress must prevail where we have
been. The country is stripped of
subsistence and the means of producing iron.
Thousands are reduced to a state of privation; refugees have followed us
and have gone, or are going north….forward to Richmond was once an odious expression
due to the recollections it recalled {of McDowell, McClellan, Burnside and
early defeats} but now it is on every tongue.”
After the war was
finally declared over, Eli Ricker, a veteran now, lingered in Washington long
enough to participate in the Grand Review of the Armies. He then made his way with his regiment to
Chicago, where on June 6th he was mustered out of the service. He returned to Oneida and attempted to don
life’s responsibilities as a civilian. In
July of 1867 he took upon himself added responsibility by taking Mary M. Smith
of Wyanet, Illinois as a wife. Their
union produced five children. He
attempted to make a living as a farmer until the early 1870s. The early success that he had as a farmer was
quashed by a horrible fluctuation in 1870, incurred debts that he valiantly
attempted to repay for a time. After
paying over $3000 worth of interest on his debts during those 5 years, at last
he threw in the towel, relinquished his home, and with only $50 in his pocket
he resolved to get the education that would allow him to recoup his
fortunes.
As a young man
he’d considered staying in the army and becoming a career soldier, but the
decline of his father’s health and his own family’s dependence upon him made
him realize that he had to look for success in other venues. Beginning with a commercial course, he
attended a seminary in Onarga, Illinois for two years, and he made his
residence there until 1882. His family
would remain there until 1884. In 1876 through
1878 he took employment in the County Clerk’s office in Watseka Illinois. It wasn’t steady work, all together it maybe
provided him a year’s employment. Still,
it was needed income. During this time
he also assisted a friend in the office in interviewing pioneers and writing
sketches of them. This would prove
invaluable experience when he began to interview westerners and Indians later
in his life. He had another obstacle to
overcome besides debt during this period of his life as well. He suffered severely from sciatica. He was told that he was likely to be further
disabled with paralysis of his left leg .
The only cure was walking; although very painful, it would build his leg
up. At first he was fortunate if he
could walk for an hour without having to stop to rest, but eventually he
recovered fully.
He resumed his
studies in school, but within a day of re-enrolling a publishing company in
Chicago, hearing of his competency as a writer, paid a visit to him at his home
and employed him to gather materials and work on nine county histories in the
states of Illinois and Indiana. This
allowed him to travel throughout the counties on foot, interview people and
further build up his leg. He was proud
of his efforts on these county histories.
They compared most favorably to those spewed out by hack writers simply
to turn a profit.
By 1882 he had
accumulated enough capital to provide for his family and continue his schooling
as well. He travelled to Brooklyn, in
central Iowa to study law with John T. Scott, a former Civil War comrade who
had risen to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General by the war’s end. Scott had been elected Governor of Iowa from
1868 to 1870 and later served as a district judge. In 1884 Eli Ricker passed his exam and was
admitted to practice law.
Armed with his
law degree now, Eli Ricker headed west and hung up his shingle in Chadron,
Nebraska. He dealt in both real estate
transactions and legal matters. When a
vacancy occurred in 1886 for a County Judgeship, he was elected to the
position, testimony that the Nebraska community held the newcomer in high
esteem.
Misfortune struck
him again in 1887 as a fire broke out in Chadron’s business section, spread and
engulfed Eli Ricker’s law office. He was
able to retrieve his books and furniture before the flames overwhelmed the
firefighters. Riker was elected County
Judge again in 1895 and again in 1897.
In 1900 he retired to his large ranch, “Gray Cliff,” on the Bordeaux
Creek; a picturesque spread graced by a high bluff of gray butte rock,
pine-covered hills and a brook running through it. He remained there for two years, giving his
ranch needed attention and paying attention to his livestock, but finding
retirement intellectually unstimulating, he entered into a partnership and
purchased The Chadronian, and in
January of 1903 brought forth the first issue of the Chadron Times.
He pursued this line of work until March of 2005 when he sold the
paper, his ranch, and moved with his family to Grand Junction, in Western
Colorado.
For some time he
had been contemplating writing a monograph on the Indian Campaign of 1890 and
the massacre of the Indians at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. This planned work soon expanded into a large
project, a work that he planned on calling The
Final Conflict Between the Red Man and the Pale Faces. The book was never written, because Eli
Ricker, like a true scholar, became so engrossed in researching and gathering
information for it that he could never find the time to write it. He spent years in the archives of the United
States Bureau of Indian Affairs and The War Department and compiled a
collection of originals and copies of letters, reports, and official documents
from many sources. Eli Ricker relied on
pencils and notebooks when he did the interviews. His notebooks eventually amassed to more than
1500 pages of writing on ruled tablets, an archive that soon became known as
“the Ricker Tablets.” The information he
gathered, including many first hand accounts of historical events, are a valued
resource that is now held in the archives of the Nebraska Historical
Society. These notebooks have recently
been edited and compiled in two volumes that are currently in print. The
Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker, 1903-1919 and Settler and Soldier Interviews of Eli S. Ricker, 1903-1919.
Just to give the reader some examples
of the wonderful historical accounts in the Ricker archives, one can find accounts
of Gall and Patriarch Crow on the Custer fight; White Bull on the Death of Lt.
Harrington; W. A. Ballou on the Fetterman massacre and the action of Capt. Ten
Eyck; J. W. Horncloud on Wounded Knee;
Grenville Dodge on the Ft. Laramie Treaty; and 36 maps and pictures drawn by
interviewees to illustrate their reminiscences.
In total, the Ricker Collection consists of 35 boxes of material and 7
reels of microfilm.
How important
have these volumes become to Western scholars?
American Studies states that
“the strength of the volumes is in the stories told by the interviewees, with
their perspective on key historical events from the Old West. Kansas
History avers that “Ricker proved himself a patient and meticulous oral
interviewer, giving voice to people mostly ignored by historians of his
day. His subjects document the Ghost
Dance as a genuine religious movement, not as a ‘craze’ as described in white
accounts.” The Bloomsbury Review acknowledges that “Amazing personal accounts are
in these volumes. Here is Western
History at its finest-vivid oral narratives that may very well become the stuff
of prize-winning stories, novels and films,”
and the Great Plains Quarterly
is lavish in its praise, stating that “the interviews are a gold mine of
information, and researchers will be rewarded for digging through them…Ricker left
Nebraska and the West an important source of information.”
Eli S. Ricker
died in Grand Junction on March 17th, 1928. His burial site, a simple GAR stone that has fallen, and is slowly being covered by earth and grass, is in the Municipal Cemetery in Orchard Mesa (Mesa County) Colorado. He may not have completed the book that he had envisioned, but his
tenacity in gathering information and interviewing participants in some of the
most legendary and debated conflicts in the history of the West have left a
treasure trove of research, and a legacy that any scholar would envy.
Bibliography
Eli S. Ricker letters to the Knox County Observer and Galesburg
Free Press
Brevet Brigadiers in
Blue 1990 Hunt and Brown
Eli S. Ricker Letters.
Nebraska State Historical Society.
Eli S. Ricker biography
Nebraska State historical Society website
Eli S. Ricker
Wikipedia
Eli S. Ricker "Find a Grave" (Note misprint for the date of birth on the Find a Grave entry.
Eli S. Ricker "Find a Grave" (Note misprint for the date of birth on the Find a Grave entry.
History of
Nebraska Albert Watkins, 1913
Voices of the American
West: the Indian Interviews of Eli S. Ricker
Amazon.com Editorial Reviews
Manuscript Record Eli Seavey Ricker Nebraska State Historical Society
History of Mercer and
Henderson Counties
“We Left a Black Track
in South Carolina” the letters of Corporal Eli S. Ricker by Edward Longacre
